Players who downloaded Axiom Verge from the Epic Games Store yesterday (the title is available for free for the next two weeks) had an unpleasant surprise. The game could not be completed – an attempt to load one of the levels ended with users being kicked back to desktop. As it turned out, the Steam.xnb file was to blame for this.... or rather the lack of it. Tom Happ, the creator of the game, explained the whole situation on Twitter.

For anyone missing Steam.xnb from the Epic store, please go to AV in your library, click the gear icon, Verify, then Update.

I was thinking it being Epic and all, I shouldn't include valve's dlls and such, so I excluded all files with "Steam" in the name... oops..

The sound of steam escaping from the pipes was to blame..

Steam.xnb is a audio file that is played when steam is released through pipes at the level that could not be loaded. The error has been fixed and Axiom Verge can be completed regardless of the source of the game. However, before running the title, we should make sure that the production is updated to the latest version.